Less jobs = less work to do

[poxpower]

No one has that positive outlook.
Isn't it true that if there's less jobs to go around, it's because there's less work to be done? Isn't that a good thing?

But our economy is centered around the idea that everyone should find something to do 40 hours a week. I could make a burger-making machine that would put millions of fast-food workers out of a job and somehow that would be considered horrible.

So you just get tons of people doing just about nothing all day in a cubicle farm because.. there's nothing to do really. I mean, think about a shopping mall. Every salesperson in there could be replaced with Amazon.com.

Less jobs... is that really a bad thing?

[SteveGuzzi]

At 9/23/09 12:45 PM, poxpower wrote: Isn't it true that if there's less jobs to go around, it's because there's less work to be done? Isn't that a good thing?

It's good in that "less work to be done" can possibly translate into "more time to do what you WANT to do" for those who are already financially-secure but it's bad in that it can also translate into "now you have to find a new way to support yourself and your family" for those who aren't.

But our economy is centered around the idea that everyone should find something to do 40 hours a week. I could make a burger-making machine that would put millions of fast-food workers out of a job and somehow that would be considered horrible.

I don't think most people would really consider it HORRIBLE, I mean, that's what the whole Industrial Revolution was about... and who even WANTS to flip burgers for a living? The people whose jobs are replaced by machines will obviously have something to complain about but that's just because THEY have to find something else to do to pay the bills. Otherwise they'd be enjoying the benefits of increased efficiency and of having one less mundane thing to do just as much as everyone else.

So you just get tons of people doing just about nothing all day in a cubicle farm because.. there's nothing to do really. I mean, think about a shopping mall. Every salesperson in there could be replaced with Amazon.com.

Except not everyone wants to wait days or weeks to get something delivered or pay extra money to have it shipped. But hey, maybe less shopping mall jobs means there'll be more FedEx and UPS delivery jobs available. Yay trucks, yay traffic. :P

Less jobs... is that really a bad thing?

Well, it's difficult to adapt to shifting economies. An economy that once relied primarily on manufacturing and importation/exportation can, over time, turn into an economy that relies more on service jobs that aren't focused on the moving of goods back and forth. People are forced to learn new trades which may involve having to pay (in both money AND time) for tuition, certification, licensing, so on and so forth. Less jobs might not be an overall bad thing but it's hard to deal with in the short term when there's bills to pay for rent, electricity, heat, food, health care, et cetera.

[Me-Patch]

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the use of machines in production raised the living standards of the average human being very greatly. It was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. Hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy and disease could be eliminated within a few generations. However, since th people in charge want to maintain a hierarchical society with themself on top, this real possibility of eliminating poverty and inequality is a deadly threat rather than something to be desired. If leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would learn to think for themselves-eventually sweeping away the oligarchy ruling them. In the long run, a hierarchical society is only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance.

[Elfer]

The problem is that there's no way in our system to really re-adjust for the lower amount of work. It's cheaper for employers to employ 30 employees for 40 hours a week than 40 employees for 30 hours a week due to things like space, benefits, etc.

This means that when there's less work to do, instead of each person doing less work, we have some people doing NO work and other people doing the same amount they did before.

Theoretically, since automation requires less resources, we should be able to get by with lower wages whenever things are automated, but due to the panicky nature of the economy, the cost of living shoots up instead. This means that attempting to keep people employed by doing less work screws over everyone.

Interestingly, here in Ontario in the last big recession (early 90s), NDP leader Bob Rae instituted a policy that became well-known for a provision people called "Rae Days," which were mandatory unpaid days of leave for employees in the public sector. While the idea was actually pretty brilliant, it pissed off a whole bunch of people because it effectively reduced their pay by a few percent, so the opposition ran with it and riled everyone up to hate the idea. Practically, Rae Days worked flawlessly, saving two billion dollars without laying off any employees. Of course, the conservatives smashed the NDP in the next election, promptly threw out Rae Days, and the budget was balanced by a whole lot of people losing their jobs.

[unowned]

yes it is bad, even though i sell useless things

[fatape]

I think the next big thing id moving from a service based economy to a entertainment based one ,
as less and less people have to do "real" jobs , more people have more time to make fun things.

[Presidentjlh]

At 9/23/09 04:55 PM, fatape wrote: I think the next big thing id moving from a service based economy to a entertainment based one ,
as less and less people have to do "real" jobs , more people have more time to make fun things.

Entertainment is a service industry, it provides an intangible good (enjoyment, recreation).

[Elfer]

At 9/23/09 05:01 PM, Presidentjlh wrote: Entertainment is a service industry, it provides an intangible good (enjoyment, recreation).

It's really hard to make robots to write screenplays, though.

[Presidentjlh]

At 9/23/09 05:08 PM, Elfer wrote:

At 9/23/09 05:01 PM, Presidentjlh wrote: Entertainment is a service industry, it provides an intangible good (enjoyment, recreation).

It's really hard to make robots to write screenplays, though.

With some of the scripts I hear in recent movies, I am starting to suspect that Hollywood is trying that out anyways.

[Elfer]

At 9/23/09 05:29 PM, Presidentjlh wrote: With some of the scripts I hear in recent movies, I am starting to suspect that Hollywood is trying that out anyways.

Which is why we need more people doing it!

Problem solved!

[JeremieCompNerd]

And why, exactly, and someone give me a real answer without any reliance whatsoever on the phrases 'because it won't work that way' or 'because that's how it's always been', do we have to have everyone working? Someone give me one good reason that in a country where all the mandatory jobs can be taken over and done almost entirely without human intervention that anyone should have to work at all? Think about it. If only 1/x people is required to run our country, then everyone in the country should be taking shifts working 30-40 hours a week for 1/x of the year. Maybe a little bit more than that, to help cover the people who can't actually work due to age/disability/et cetera. Some people that I know of would volunteer for more, because they actually like their jobs. Then others have to work even less. The whole capitalist system becomes pointless, the whole concept of money dies, when you no longer need every man, woman, and child working to keep a country afloat. We should be working on moving on.

[RubberTrucky]

At 9/23/09 06:43 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: And why, exactly, and someone give me a real answer without any reliance whatsoever on the phrases 'because it won't work that way' or 'because that's how it's always been', do we have to have everyone working?

Somehow it's connected to give and take. In order to get something from someone you should do something in return. This used to be trades, now it is us who do something for society and then we get money for that and we can buy what we need.

If jobs will go away, people who are out of a job, don't contribute to society and should be given money for free, which is something that one should adjust to. If society is able to make money appear like that and give it to people without a job, there would be no problem. Now, jobless people tend to get money, but there are restrictions, like having to make effort finding a job. So they get money as long as they have a prospect to contributing to society.

[JeremieCompNerd]

Ah, but the beauty of it is that we no longer need everyone to contribute. So why should we force them to? It's like saying, "I have two sandwiches. I can only eat one. The other one would be wasted if nobody ate it. I will give you this sandwich, if and only if you make me a sandwich."
You see, right now we have people doing jobs that don't actually need to be done. If we just gave them the sandwich in the first place, it doesn't really matter if they do the job or not. People are just so used to being absolutely opposed to giving something away for nothing, they'd rather throw away good tables and chairs that no longer match the paint in their kitchen than to donate it to goodwill! It's just sad that this country can't recognize that it no longer needs a full workforce. We can do just fine without everyone having a job, and we have plenty left over to give to the people who don't work.

[RubberTrucky]

At 9/23/09 07:47 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: We can do just fine without everyone having a job, and we have plenty left over to give to the people who don't work.

Ah, but pedagogically, who can work and who can't? If you do give away money for free, who has the right to do nothing for it?

[tiskewl]

Actually the best time for the economy should be post war.
1. The economy needs to switch back to peace time and new jobs should open up.
2. People died in the war. Less people>less competition for jobs>less people unemployed>lower unemployment rate.

[Elfer]

At 9/23/09 06:43 PM, JeremieCompNerd wrote: And why, exactly, and someone give me a real answer without any reliance whatsoever on the phrases 'because it won't work that way' or 'because that's how it's always been', do we have to have everyone working? Someone give me one good reason that in a country where all the mandatory jobs can be taken over and done almost entirely without human intervention that anyone should have to work at all?

Capitalism. People get super pissed at the idea of someone being able to get by without doing work.

[poxpower]

At 9/23/09 01:14 PM, SteveGuzzi wrote:

Less jobs might not be an overall bad thing but it's hard to deal with in the short term when there's bills to pay for rent, electricity, heat, food, health care, et cetera.

My point is more that even if there's way less to do today than 200 years ago, people are still working all day.
When will this end? When we'll all have our holodeck and our matter replicator, we'll still have to find some dumbass thing to do 40 hours a week?

200 years ago, the main thing was agriculture. Now, one farm can feed hundreds. So... what are those other people supposed to do?

At 9/23/09 02:07 PM, Elfer wrote:

and the budget was balanced by a whole lot of people losing their jobs.

Yes see, other people see the problem : D

At 9/23/09 04:55 PM, fatape wrote: I think the next big thing id moving from a service based economy to a entertainment based one ,

My solution is: a RESEARCH based economy.
Scientific research is understaffed. In fact, until we know EVERYTHING THERE IS TO KNOW, it will always need more people.

Think of where we could be if we have formed 10 000 biochemists instead of 10 000 idiots who file TPS reports once a week un a cubicle farm.

At 9/23/09 08:06 PM, Elfer wrote:

Capitalism. People get super pissed at the idea of someone being able to get by without doing work.

Yes.
See? Research-based economy: everyone has something to do. No matter your level of intellect, there's always some kind of thing you can do to facilitate research. Cleaning tubes for instance or filing paperwork.

People are happy to contribute to society when given the chance. Just look at wikipedia. All pro-bono. People take pride in doing work well regardless of money.

So yeah if you enroll people in a process where you tell them "hey your job makes humankind move forward" then they can feel better about it instead of being behind a counter 40 hours a week hoping to sell dresses to fat chicks.

[Elfer]

At 9/23/09 08:35 PM, poxpower wrote: See? Research-based economy: everyone has something to do. No matter your level of intellect, there's always some kind of thing you can do to facilitate research. Cleaning tubes for instance or filing paperwork.

See, that's a good idea, and one I've been rolling around in my head for some time now. With more automation, what we really need is mostly technicians, maintenance, construction, engineering, and research.

The problem lies not in the system itself, but in the transition. I'm not sure how to get there gradually, and there would be virtually no support for a complete upheaval.

See, if we want to work towards it, who starts paying for the first steps? Research is understaffed because grant money is scarce, and there's diminishing returns. Non-academic research is very much non-exhaustive, because companies don't want to pay for research if it doesn't look like it'll be making them money in a timely fashion.

Honestly, the best way that I can see this working is if we had a Star Trek cashless society where people worked because it's the right thing for society and the individual, not because they get rewarded with material goods.

The first step then, I guess, is to raise two generations with excellent work ethic.

[JeremieCompNerd]

At 9/23/09 09:57 PM, Elfer wrote: The first step then, I guess, is to raise two generations with excellent work ethic.

Personally, I think that's a slow step in the right direction, but we've got enough people who already want to put on a lab coat for it to be cost effective to wait 100 years for the whole population to agree. I think we should skip step one and move straight to opening the floodgates. Anyone who wants to learn firsthand how the universe works, and then teach it to the rest of us, here's the sign in board.

[poxpower]

At 9/23/09 09:57 PM, Elfer wrote:

Honestly, the best way that I can see this working is if we had a Star Trek cashless society

Hmmm
Well consider the case of Google. I think they have made a step in that direction. They bring in assloads of money and use it to hire people who they tell "X hours a week, do whatever you want".
As a result, some of the best Google-related software was born.

So a country that is rich could simply start a research bureau. You get hired for it and X hours a week, you work on assigned duties and X hours a week you do whatever you want as long as it's research in whatever domain interests you.

I'd bet the financial gains would be fast to come in such a society. It's the same thing that happened in history when they realized that it was a smart thing to do to pull people off fields and let them do scientific experiments.
Science is unpredictable by nature. The only way to advance research is to fund massive amounts of it and eventually a discovery will arise almost randomly and have huge repercussions. Something like... radio signals. The person who discovered them had not the faintest clue of what he was on.

So again... my bet is that a society that heavily promotes and rewards research will find itself one step ahead of everyone else really soon.

And really, how hard would it be to make such a system? All it needs is kind of a public research fund where all discoveries made are public domain for that country. Of course that sounds SUPER-COMMUNIST :D

Capitalism is not to our advantage in the long-term anyway.
Again and again and again it's been shown that money is a terrible incentive for creativity. There was a recent TED talk about that too where they found that giving financial incentives to people so they solve complex problems made them perform worse. That's really something to think about... You can't buy great ideas with money. Great ideas make money AFTER you've had them.

[Der-Lowe]

At 9/23/09 12:45 PM, poxpower wrote: No one has that positive outlook.

Because it isn't like we have less things to do because we've said: ok, we're rich enough, just because the system is tumbling down, less jobs=less income for the unemployed; less income = bad.

By definition, being unemployed means not having a job and actually be looking for one.

Isn't it true that if there's less jobs to go around, it's because there's less work to be done? Isn't that a good thing?

But our economy is centered around the idea that everyone should find something to do 40 hours a week.

hmm, not really, I'm quite lazy.

I could make a burger-making machine that would put millions of fast-food workers out of a job and somehow that would be considered horrible.

That line of thinking is only by the laymen, you'd be helping increase productivity and making the public better.

So you just get tons of people doing just about nothing all day in a cubicle farm because.. there's nothing to do really. I mean, think about a shopping mall. Every salesperson in there could be replaced with Amazon.com.

Why don't you actually base your judgments on reality, than reality on your judgements. It comes to mind that shopping personally has to do with social needs of people, lower shipping costs, and just trying stuff on, like in the teenage american movies when all the girls go to the mall.

At 9/23/09 02:07 PM, Elfer wrote: Theoretically, since automation requires less resources, we should be able to get by with lower wages whenever things are automated,

Wages would go up, instead of down. Eg, the industrial revolution.

[Minarchist]

At 9/23/09 12:45 PM, poxpower wrote: No one has that positive outlook.

I do, only slightly modified and with proper English. Fewer public sector jobs = less work to do [to support them].

On the other hand, fewer private sector jobs = more work to do [to support the public sector jobs].

[Elfer]

At 9/24/09 01:44 PM, Der-Lowe wrote:

At 9/23/09 02:07 PM, Elfer wrote: Theoretically, since automation requires less resources, we should be able to get by with lower wages whenever things are automated,

Wages would go up, instead of down. Eg, the industrial revolution.

That works in classical economic theory. The problem is that that's an unsustainable model where progress only occurs when people are producing and consuming more shit. Eventually this starts to get shaky, as you can see now where the cost of living is increasing faster than inflation and wages are increasing slower than inflation.

We're talking about automation where we produce/consume the same amount and work less.

[Toadenalin]

Is this a clever troll? I like it if it is!

Technology frees up people from certain types of labour and will therefore create new industries in other. The Econ 101 example I was taught was to imagine a world where only two products were made; hotdogs and buns. It takes one man one day to make either a hotdog or a bun, and people have a strong preference for consuming hotdogs and buns in a one-to-one ratio (that is, people would not pay any money for a bun by itself). Let's also say there are 100 people in the world. The market equilibrium is that 50 people will make hotdogs, 50 people will make buns and everyone will get to eat 3.5 hotdog/bun combinations a week.

Now imagine new technology is invented that makes the creation of buns ten times faster. At the old market equilibrium, this means that 3150 buns will go unsold each week. Reluctantly, the owners of the bun factories will have to make cutbacks - specifically firing 45 workers so that there are now 50 hotdog makers, 5 bun makers and 45 unemployed.

If the story stopped there, pox would be absoloutely right, developing technology would mean that eventually some people would have to lose their jobs permanently to machines. But I'm sure you can see that the story does NOT stop there, at least if the market functions right; an investor will see that he can hire 44 of the unemployed workers, put 40 of them to work making hotdogs and 4 of them to work making buns and everyone will be better off; they can consume 6.3 hotdog/bun combos a week (even allowing for the welfare payments they make to the single unemployed guy!)

Thus, even in the simplest of thought experiments its clear that technology cannot cause unemployment - what will cause unemployment in this story is if people decide they want to diet and only eat 3.5 hotdogs a week again, in which case 45 workers become superfluous

/wall of text

[Christopherr]

Well, shit, guys, what have I been thinking?

Let's all just be funemployed!

[SgtGoose]

I think the author brings up a great point. The fact is, with every invention that puts thousands of people out of work, the standard of living goes up. Less money for the masses, but the things they want and need are cheaper.

think about the standard of living for homeless people, I know several people who chose to be homeless because having a job isn't necessary to survive anymore. I have done it, free food, clothes, alcohol, drugs, socks, ect. Having a job is not necessary for a comfortable and happy existence.

[poxpower]

At 9/26/09 10:49 AM, Toadenalin wrote:

Technology frees up people from certain types of labour and will therefore create new industries in other.

Yeah but it doesn't follow that it will employ the same amount of people.

they can consume 6.3 hotdog

There's only 24 hours in a day, you can't consume endless products and services.

[gumOnShoe]

At 9/26/09 10:49 AM, Toadenalin wrote: If the story stopped there, pox would be absoloutely right, developing technology would mean that eventually some people would have to lose their jobs permanently to machines. But I'm sure you can see that the story does NOT stop there, at least if the market functions right; an investor will see that he can hire 44 of the unemployed workers, put 40 of them to work making hotdogs and 4 of them to work making buns and everyone will be better off; they can consume 6.3 hotdog/bun combos a week (even allowing for the welfare payments they make to the single unemployed guy!)

But you've forgotten that the market doesn't want anymore hot dogs because there's already an abundance of fat people. On top of that the people don't like people who don't work so no one wants to keep one man on welfare while the rest of them do work. Even if they did want more hot dogs, there aren't enough resources to make more hot dogs, nor is there an investor who thinks anyone should continue to make hot dogs when there's already a competitor out there, especially since he'd rather invest the money in himself. The simple fact is, no one else needs hot dogs so unless there is something else to do, which in a 2 product economy, there isn't, no one will get new jobs, especially if the fired workers only ever wanted to make hot dogs and buns.

[JeremieCompNerd]

Actually, in this theoretical two item economy, I see it as the entire 100 person population takes shifts making hotdogs or buns, so that everyone can have as many as 4 hotdogs on a bun per week, that's still more than they did get, and now they only work half the year or so. It's not that hard to imagine a society where we take turns doing what needs to be done so that we can have a turn doing what we want, is it?

[ohbombuh]

Well having too many people and too many jobs may force people into poverty and starvation...but for our species to be adaptable to any unpredicted cause of death we must reproduce so there are more born in a generation than those who successfully reproduced in the one before. Since this trend continues after we have reached the carrying capacity (maximum number our environment can support adequately), there will always* be humans who face hardship and death without reproduction.

Anyway, the economy has to turn around eventually, so we can't go around worrying and complaining too much about it.

*Unless, of course, we go completely extinct.